Caste system has deepened their roots in the society from the past centuries. In the olden times there were only few sections of the society who were allowed to study. These sections came from the upper castes (Weiner 193-225). From the days of Gurukuls students who were from the lower caste were not allowed to study. It was understood that studying was only the role of the upper caste people and the lower caste people were given different types of jobs. This was the major reason why for the several years India remained a country which was having a large part of the population being uneducated (Kingdon 168-195). In olden times even the students from the lower caste were not allowed to enter into the gurukuls citing that they were untouchables. This lack of knowledge made them poor which further restricted them from gaining knowledge. The upper caste understood themselves as the elite class. This was a divide that created the larger part of the economy to remain in the hands of only the few people.
In this caste system earlier Vaishyas and Sudras remained mostly deprived of the education. Since Vaishyas had money hence in the Medieval India they developed their own type of schools were they gained some kind of education. Things further changed in India when India was under the colonial rule. This is because some of the activists understood the pathetic condition of the society in India. They started to teach the students from the lower castes. Jyotirao phule, Baba amte, Acharya Binova Bhave are some of the social reformers who fought many struggles to teach the people from the lower sections of the society. It was time of social reforms as these lower caste people were not only deprived of the education but were also deprived of the basic human rights. Many of the reformers understood that the base of the social reforms was education (Munshi and Rosenzweig 1225-1252). This was one of the major reasons why they did not grow. This was reason that some of them got jobs in the British India and some like B.R. Ambedekar was able to go to other countries to gain higher education.
India was an assembly of British royal territories and loosely populated princely states. Almost 3000 years before the colonial rule, India was divided into many different states. The oppressive caste system is creating by the Hinduism which is the basic component of the religion. This system does not allow upward motion in the society. The caste system in society makes people exposed to bias and stereotype. It causes clashes within society. The caste system is filled with the disparity and injustice. The Indian society is cast provoked. The people of one cast do not like to mix or communicate with the people of other casts. This partition of community is reflected in various convictions, castes, and sub-castes. All these things come in the mode of unity and incorporation of the Indian society (Pande 1132-1151). The caste system is a great evil even for the education system in the country. It has even increased due to the large section of the illiteracy and obliviousness of the people. Their obliviousness even makes people conventional and delusory.
The social stratification of India has given rise to in some of the major partitions in the world. The Indian census of 1901 ceremoniously established the special castes of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. Dalits were considered untouchables and were the lowest caste. They make up sixteen percent population in India. They were deliberated beneath Indian society and were acknowledged in the census (Gang, Sen and Yun 50-70). The Indian government in the 1950 constitution of India has officially eradicated untouchability in the country. Though, this system is live in India today and has been ingrained into the state and culture for the hundreds of years. The caste system in India instigated around 7 A.D. This system is based on the Hindu belief that the position of a person in the existing life is reliant on the sins of their past life (Balagopalan 19-34). The caste of a person is therefore set in the place at birth. Social discrimination has afflicted the most populated country on Earth for the generations. It has caused chaos in the educational system. The outcome of the caste system on education in India has been unfavorable to the development of millions of lower caste students (Ackerson 507-514).
After Independence they were given all the rights that upper class people had. The first thing that government though was that without lifting their educational level it was not possible to take out such a large population out of poverty and the conditions they are facing in India. The deprived castes were combined under one name and were called as ‘Dalits’. It was one of the major reasons why the idea of reservation came up. In the making of the constitution, provisions were made for the Dalits and other backward classes so that they can gain higher education. This reservation was a game changer move in the educational system of India as certain specific numbers of seat were reserved in the government institutes for these lower class people (Rao 97-106). Many of the state and central governments then after also provided certain other kind of benefits for the people so that they can get education. Reservation was implemented in the nation for few years only but since the condition did not improved in most part of the India hence caste system continued. The situation was even worse in the rural India where their population was highest and the educational system was even of the basic levels.
This was appropriate till many years but when reservation became the tool for gaining the vote bank, the situation became worse. This created a situation where the eligibility of the candidates appearing for the entrance examination started to face problems. It was found that general category students did not get education in the good universities. Seat was offered to the reserved even when the general category students more eligible than the reserved category members. In the long term this is not good for the talent pool of the nation (Rao, Cheng and Narain 153-176). This is because it will create many such students who were having lesser amount of skills. It was one of the major reasons why new private universities came up. These general class people who did not get education in the universities started to find new private universities who did not differed between the students from different sections of the company. Coming up of these new educational institutions in India further degraded the quality of the government institutes and only few of the educational institutions remained of higher quality. It was the sublime effect of the caste system that the degradation of the public educational institutions started to arise. Right now, none of the Indian Institutions remained of the world class level or say are not in the list of top 100 educational institutes of the world.
The literacy rate around the globe is linked to the individual success along with their own country economically and socially. The degree of India’s land size covers the way for inequality in educational opportunities and literacy rates. Twenty-nine states from India with the general wealth and social discrepancies affect each state. Bihar is situated in Northern India and is colonized with a majority of Dalits. Inevitably it is one of the poorest states (Frisancho and Krishna 611-649). The dearth of wealth has ensued in literacy rates flying around fifty percent. In the comparison, the southern state of Kerala is much richer. The state even claims literacy rates at ninety percent and is made up of the sophisticated castes. This disparity has initiated drawback which I hold by the poor Dalit children. It has been considered that half of all poor children in India keep relation to the Dalit caste. It constrains opportunities for the growth and security of the Dalit children (Banerjee, Iyer and Somanathan 639-647). Although the school attendance of this group has increased from 64% to 77% in the last six years however, it continues to lag behind 84% which is seen among the children of other casts. The consequence of the caste system on education has formed the literacy divide in India. Some other progress has been also made in this area like the percentage of the children registered in the schools has been increasing specifically at primary education level (Dunn 53-70). The civil right act 1955 and the tribe casts act 1989 have helped in creating job and education quotas for the lower casts. However, Dalits continue to face discernment in education and physical annoyances by teachers and another category of the students. This caste endures having low literacy rates and high failure rates. International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) has made a statement that the intolerance, chauvinism, and nuisance towards Dalits are equally predominant in the higher education institutes (Asadullah and Yalonetzky 1151-1163). Averting discrimination of castes at the education level is vivacious to avoid advance institutionalization of the system at later stages.
It has been revealed that a study of thirty-five countries included India; poverty is the greatest element in low school admission and high rates of child labor. The dangerous labor positions are carried on by children. As a result, Dalit children leave education and work to upkeep their poor families. The financial timidity is the major menace to the success of Dalit children. The child labor and child marriage have a role in ending education carrier of the students. From 2005 to 2006, 18.2% of Dalit girls under the age of fifteen lost their purity as they were married unlawfully. Bihar attained a score of 68.2% for the brutal handling of women. Such unfortunate circumstances have repressed millions of Dalit children (Bertrand, Hanna and Mullainathan 16-39). The Xavier school have been established in North Karnataka to particularly cater to the requirements of the Dalits. The school left behind the caste boundaries and believe that these underprivileged children are the key to Indian growth. Xavier has even formed a foundation for the progress of the children in India, but careers are more problematic for the Dalit to arise by. The organizations such as NGOs Sulabh Sanitation have been supporting in noticing the hidden talents and opportunities. The organization is targeted at eradicating the struggles of manual labor by guiding and training women to offer them a new beginning with training in various areas (Gusfield 351-362).
Due to favouring of the people from the particular section of the society, many intelligent people were unable to come up. It was the long term effect of the reservation that some of the Dalits who had large amount of money, their children easily get admission into the educational institutes (Siddhu 394-401). Dalits who are poor did not get admission as they lacked such infrastructure at the lower levels to study for the entrance examination. It is seen many a times, that the IAS officer from the lower section of the society had all kinds of resources for educating their children and hence their children are more likely to get admissions in the higher educational institutions. This further deepened the problem. Now it has become one of the major reasons why conflicts at the educational level started to increase.
The Indian government expends almost a third of its budget on education. Still, huge disparities are realized in the education quality that is attained by an individual. The accessibility of the quality education to the children is constrained by their class and caste. The universalization of upright quality education has not been attained even after the right approved by the constitution. The right to education act was articulated and executed in 2007 (Dreze and Kingdon 1-24). It assures compulsory education up to the eighth standard. However, there is vast inequality in who obtains good eminence and elementary education. The privileged endure to assist from the sponsored education that is given by the government. On the other side, the downgraded cannot even workout their right to education. The Indian government has always a propensity to enlarge best institutions of the higher education. The government has even developed popular level institutions for offering basic quality education. The hierarchy of the Indian education system is discriminating and acts like a gateway. The education is still considered as a vehicle of social agility (Hnatkovska, Lahiri and Paul 435-473). The education system of the country is restrictive and has loopholes. The government here place in order the exclusive institutes over the primary schools. The Indian government keeps reservations for the people belonging to the lower category. The reservations in the education system do not fix anything because the basic education quality is subpar and the hierarchization of the education boards has opposite effects on the state-sponsored education (Betancourt and Gleason 2169-2182).
The problem faced in the colleges is that children of the poor class are discriminated as they have deliberated in the government schools. Such students find challenging to compete with the students from prosperous credentials. The partition of the education system into diverse boards categorizes the students into diverse classes as per their monetary conditions. There are diverse education boards within the state boards which are least exclusive and have a brighter prospectus. This partition classifies the students and creates a problem in the accessibility of the known as the finest quality education offered by remote organizations (Deshpande 322-325). Such hierarchy at the primary level makes tough for the students of the government schools to contend with the students from the established boards like CBSE, ICSE and IB schools on the college level. The caste system has also pierced the education institutes. The caste has significant role inaccessibility to the educational institutes. The primary state education seems to be universal but it is still lead by the caste system. The social stratification is unfavorable to the Dalits and lowers caste children. Children of such category are caught in the vicious cycle of the poverty. It has been considered that one-half of the poorest children are linked to the Dalit community. The dropout rate is higher from the Dalit community. It gives upsurge to the high literacy rate and offers no economic flexibility. The initiation of the reservations has enhanced the conditions of the people (Inkeles 208-225).
The number of the school registrations of the lower casts and Dalits have increased but they still continue to face discernment at these institutions. Dalit children are hated in the class and are made to sit at back. It disables the knowledge process in the classes. These children are even made to do tedious work in the institutes like cleaning classrooms and the toilets. These students are considered untouchables and restricted from the social groups. Such type of discrimination puts a huge impact on the children mentally and physically (Borooah 399-414). It leads to the low self-respect and they are more likely to drop out of the schools. On the other side, if we talk about the advanced education in India than it is grounded on the principle of individuality. No efforts are made for the universalization of the education in this area due to the specialization of the specific field. The entry to this gateway is made through the entrance test and the merit list (Jeffrey, Jeffery and Jeffery 1-38). The performance in the entrance exam is considered the benchmark for the gateway. The meritocracy does not comprise the type of funds the children have access to nor the culture and social capital which is extended over the years.
The upper class is overrepresented in the education system of India. It eats a foremost portion of the informative space. The lack of approachability to the primary education and the institutionalized discernment leads to the small proportion of the lower casts, Dalits, and minorities passing the departure tests. The reservations are not the key to the social seclusion facilitated by the hierarchization of the education system (Jeffrey, Jeffery and Jeffery 963-986). The efforts and strong policies are required to globalize the education space in India. The growth and expansion of the exclusive institutions do not necessarily get people out of poverty. The Indian government is required to view education quality as a right for the students to disrupt the malicious cycle of poverty and disparity. The caste system in India keeps on suppressing the lower section of people which make them take weapons in their hands (Desai and Kulkarni 245-270).
Educational system at the school level was extremely affected by the caste system in the country. In India most part of the population lives in the rural India where even the basic level of the education was not given to the people. Previously these schools also taught the people from the lower sections of the society but when the governments at the local levels became strict. Dalit population lived in the rural India and hence had a greater effect on the educational system in this part of the country. For this one condition has to be understood that is the fact that these lower caste people did not want to study and their parents also did not allowed the students to go the school. In the years the system became weak as the government school that was made for the education people for the lower caste background did not has teacher and also did not had students (Stash and Hannum 354-378). The infrastructure became further poor in the coming decades. Poverty in this class of the society was considered as one of the major reasons for this. Some of the NGO tried to teach these people from the lower caste but the significant results were not achieved from their results. In order to improve this situation various governmental programs such as mid-day meal and opening schools at the ground level started to open. In the year 2009, when the people were given the right to education, free education was provided to the people from every section of the society. At the same time, more high-tech school started to open in the remote areas. An argument towards not sending their children for education by the Dalit parents can be given by the fact that the parents who themselves are educated always give efforts towards educating their children while the people who themselves are not educated do not understand the importance of getting educated.
An education system is an important tool for the development of the economy. It is one of the influential tools in reducing inequality and poverty. It is a great equalizer in improving the standard of the living of the different casts in the country. The effect of the caste system on the Indian education has disappeared in the modern times, but it is still prevailing in the poor states (Kijima 369-404). Dalits are being identified for their exclusive qualities and assistance to the society along with resources in place. The constant identification of the lower castes helps India to move forward and pasts the curbs of negative labels. The new government also have to overcome the discrimination suffered by the Dalits today by providing youth a fair and effective access to the education. The government is also recommended to use United Nations principles and procedures for the effective elimination of the discrimination (Thorat and Attewell 4141-4145). It can serve framework to confront the issue of the caste system. Along with this, the employment is also a problem faced by the Dalits. It is hoped to improve by a reduction in the discrimination of the education system. It can result in reducing discrimination and separation in access to the employment. The average skill level of the Dalit group can be increased by the government policies.
Improving the educational system will not be easy for the government of India in the coming future. The prime example is the Reservation where after so many years of its implementation also people remained uneducated from different caste. More teachers from the lower caste will have to be deployed at the ground levels so as to train and educated people from the same caste. Lot of infrastructural advancements needs to be done at the rural levels so that condition of the educational system can be strengthened (Subramanian 818-825). More strict rules are required against the people who implant a feeling of untouchability in the children. Children often do learn what they see their parents are doing. The atrocities act against the Dalits needs to be implemented at the ground levels so as to ensure that even the Dalits feels them to be safe in sending their students to school. It is more important to spread awareness in the minds of the parents then in children as most of the people are not studying as their parents did allow them to. More structural reforms are needed at the society level as superficial projects won’t work and will also lead to wastage of money. The first and most basic thing that can only save Indian educational system in the coming years will be that if society itself dissolves caste system. Many of things have been only done in urban areas but the situation remains to be bleak in the rural areas.
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